The cast and crew of A Christmas Horror Story have stuffed the cinematic stockings with a delightfully devious new take on the holiday season. With A Christmas Horror Story now out in select theaters and viewable on VOD and iTunes, Daily Dead caught up with Steve Hoban—one of the film's three directors—to discuss working with William Shatner, setting the horror anthology film in the same town from the Ginger Snaps movies, and much more.

Thanks for taking the time to converse with Daily Dead today. I really enjoyed A Christmas Horror Story and believe it will become a holiday cult classic that horror fans can happily unwrap each year. How did you get involved with this project and what appealed to you the most after reading the script for the first time?

Steve Hoban: Thank you for saying that. As true fans of the genre, we made the movie with the hope that it would be the kind of film that we would want to see every year. So you saying that is music to my ears. How the movie got going had a lot to do with another Christmas-themed horror movie, the remake of Bob Clark's seminal Black Christmas, on which I was a producer. Despite having a great writing and directing team in Glen Morgan and Jim Wong, that film was troubled during development and then ended up being released at the wrong time, right at the end of the Christmas movie season. It didn't do as well as it could have and every Christmas since, like a seasonal allergy, I was reminded of the lost opportunity. So, in October 2013 after seeing advertising for the upcoming heart-warming holiday movies and getting in a very humbug mood, I decided it was time to try once again to bring Christmas fear to movie fans.

I wanted to shoot that winter and since there was very little time to come up with and write a conventional 100-page story, I decided to make the movie using several stories. That way we could have a number of writers working on it at one time.

So, with that idea and very few weeks before the start of winter in Toronto, my producing partner, Mark Smith, and I asked the writers—plus a few others—who had worked with us on our edgy, experimental Netflix show, Darknet (that I co-developed with Vincenzo Natali), to pitch us ideas for segments of the film. The only parameters I set were 1) the movie had to be both scary and fun, 2) it should take place in the town of Bailey Downs (or maybe Bedford Falls), 3) each story had to fit into a different sub-genre of horror (i.e. ghost story, creature, creepy kid, zombies, etc.), and 4) the stories had to weave in and out of each other. We did the same thing to great effect in Darknet.

This crisscrossing of stories and sharing of characters allowed us to make A Christmas Horror Story a real feature film experience as opposed to a festival of short films with multiple beginnings, middles and ends. More like Pulp Fiction than a conventional anthology movie. We started talking to writers in the middle of November and then, the day before the Christmas holidays started, we had a first consolidated draft with all of the stories (there were five, not four) plus a very early version of the DJ character that our head of film development, Brian Morey, had roughed in.

This film was created with three directors at the helm, including you. Did each of you direct separate segments or were you all behind the camera throughout the entire film? What was the collaborative creative process like on set?

Steve Hoban: We each directed our own segments. Grant Harvey directed the "Changeling" and the "Krampus in the Woods" stories, Brett Sullivan directed the "Teens in the Haunted School," and I directed the "Santa vs. the Zombie Elves" and "William Shatner DJ stories." We had one cinematographer, Gavin Smith, for the whole thing to help us maintain some consistency while also allowing each story to have its own style. Mark Smith (no relation to Gavin) and I produced together so were overseeing the whole production and, to borrow a term from television, I acted as the "showrunner" for the whole movie, working with all of the writers and the other two directors.

Having said that, each of the writers made suggestions for the other writers' stories and Grant and Brett were both involved with the movie as a whole, including making suggestions on the script, each others' shooting and especially in the editing room. It was a very collaborative process. We also had one composer, Alex Khaskin, (Ginger Snaps Back, Darknet) for the whole movie. Alex's great and moody score is a big part of why the movie plays as one cohesive movie.

A Christmas Horror Story takes place in the small town of Bailey Downs, the same place werewolves roamed in two of the Ginger Snaps films. How did the idea originate to revisit the fictional horror setting and did you insert any Ginger Snaps Easter eggs (or Christmas presents) for fans to enjoy?

Steve Hoban: My original thought was to set the movie in Bedford Falls, the town in which It's a Wonderful Life takes place. And once I had thought of setting in a fictional town from a movie, it was natural to then consider a place from one of our movies. I was torn between Bedford Falls and Bailey Downs but, in the end, my self-referential ego won out over my desire to give a nod to one of my favorite Christmas movies.

There was a bit of dialogue I wrote for William Shatner's DJ character referencing the Fitzgerald sisters, as well as an unfortunate incident with the Bailey Downs ice skating squad from Orphan Black. We ended up editing it out because that section was just too long. However, Shatner is drinking his spiked eggnog out of a coffee mug with a Christmas version of the animated character Kuddle Kat that Vincenzo Natali drew for Darknet. The adorable Kuddle Kat ended up becoming the muse for a diabolical maniac called the Kuddle Kat Killah in the show. That episode was written by James Kee, who wrote our "Krampus in the Woods" segment.

What was the most challenging or memorable scene to shoot?

Steve Hoban: There were so many challenges because we shot the movie in just 22 days. That was especially tough because we had so many locations and characters. But one of the biggest challenges was shooting the scenes Grant directed in the forest. Before we began filming at the end of February, we were so worried that the snow would melt (Toronto can often have almost no snow in the winter). As it turned out, we had more snow than the region had seen in almost 50 years! And it stayed for a long time. It was tough slogging all that equipment through deep snow. And, on top of that, Toronto crews have become accustomed to big budget cushy American movies. On our show we were paying them less and asking them to work harder—in the brutal cold. Yep, it was challenging.

I suppose the most memorable scene for most of us would have to be the big fight between Santa and the Zombie Elves. It's hard to forget the image of jolly old Saint Nick wading through a gaggle of cursing, infected little people while chopping off their heads.

This film features a great mix of various types of horror—slow burn, action horror, creature feature, dark comedy—was it difficult to successfully intertwine those elements into one ultimate Yuletide tale?

Steve Hoban: Weaving those stories together was the hardest part of making the movie. Part of the challenge was that the tones vary from one story to another, so when you leave one to check in with another the moods do not necessarily line up. Sometimes this is a good thing, because it can be good to juxtapose a moody scene with a scary scene, but at other times it could frustrate or push the audience out of the movie. The biggest challenge, however, was the pacing. As you point out, some are slow burn and some are action and these often did not line up at all.

For instance, the "Changeling" and "Teens in the Haunted School" stories are both deliberately paced with slow, long builds, while Krampus hunting the family in the woods and Santa's battle at the north pole were fast-paced. At the script stage we wove the stories together, giving each of them about the same weight by checking in with them at more or less regular intervals. From there we created crossover moments for characters and also created "throws" from one story to another. Meaning one of us would direct an outgoing scene in such a way that the next director could start on a shot that would follow artfully.

Unfortunately, once we cut the movie together per the script, we realized that it was a very badly paced movie. So we went back to the drawing board and in the edit room rebalanced the whole thing, not worrying so much about whether we had been away from a story too long and focused on which scenes from which stories made for the best build in the overall movie. This proved to be much more successful. Again, Alex's score helped to keep things moving smoothly along.

A Christmas Horror Story boasts an impressive cast, including William Shatner, George Buza, and some talented young actors, as well. What was your experience bringing these great stories to life with such a game cast?

Steve Hoban: We have always worked very hard on our scripts, to craft them as well as we can, but at the end of the day, if you don't have the right talented actors, it almost won't matter. George Buza was always going to be Santa. I cannot and never could have imagined a better jolly, scary Viking Santa than him. Krampus was tricky. It was our stunt supervisor, Paul Rapovsky, who said there was only one guy he knew, Rob Archer, who was big enough, agile enough and tough enough to be Krampus. We needed someone who would look like a force of nature, be able to sit through eight hours of makeup application and then spend 12 hours in the middle of the winter protected only by a loincloth and four-percent body fat. Rob could not have been more gung-ho and, as you can see in the movie, he performed like a demon.

Among the most difficult parts to cast were the elves. There are not that many little people with real acting chops. But we got lucky with some wonderful actors like Ken Hall and Joe Silvaggio and then recycled them—a lot. Is that politically correct? Ken and Joe played multiple zombie elves and Joe also played the changeling creature.

Thinking back on it now, I am amazed that we got such great actors across the board. We had so many characters that you would think some of them would be just okay, but that wasn't the case. We had a great mix of actors we had worked with before and then discovered some really talented young actors.

Then, of course, there is the incomparable William Shatner. For the role of DJ Dangerous Dan, we put together a list of our favorite actors. The list was wide-ranging, including young and old as well as male and female actors because the DJ could be any of those. However, once we looked at that long list there was no one there with a better voice or who embodied more charm and humor than Mr. Shatner. And I think there is no doubt that his performance elevates the whole movie. He was also really great to work with and supportive or our little horror flick.

Do you have any favorite holiday films—horror or otherwise—that influenced how you approached A Christmas Horror Story?

Steve Hoban: Some of my favorite holiday movies (and they all influence you in some way or another) are It's a Wonderful Life, Chuck Jones' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, A Christmas Story (this more than Bob Clark's other great Christmas movie, heck we even sort of stole his title) and Gremlins. In terms of approach to the film, the real touchstones were Creepshow and Pulp Fiction.

Are there any plans for a sequel to A Christmas Horror Story? Would you be interested in returning to this world?

Steve Hoban: We very much want to return to Bailey Downs next Christmas. We learned a lot about how to construct this kind of movie and want to do it again and even better. Plus, we need to know what happens to some of the characters from the first movie and I think Ghost (Tatiana Maslany) from Ginger Snaps: Unleashed was planning to take her captive werewolf (Emily Perkins) back to the old hometown for the holidays.

With A Christmas Horror Story now in select theaters, VOD, and iTunes from RLJ Entertainment, what projects do you have on deck that you can tease for our readers?

Steve Hoban: In the spring we are planning to shoot an adaptation of a really cool novella by Stephen King and Joe Hill called In the Tall Grass. Vincenzo Natali wrote the script and will direct. Sticking with titles that start with "In the", we are working on In the Lost Lands, a fantasy epic based on stories by George R. R. Martin, written and to be directed by Constantin Werner. In the world of television we have been developing a very cool high-concept science fiction series with novelist Robert J. Sawyer (Flashforward).

------------

To read our review of A Christmas Horror Story, visit:

  • Derek Anderson
    About the Author - Derek Anderson

    Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.

    When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.